Why Your Website Needs Great Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

January 17

Search engine optimization (often abbreviated to SEO) is the bread and butter of any great website.

Without great SEO, your competitors will rank higher than you on any search in Google.

And, since Google Search is the 800# Gorilla of “Information Dissemination” online, if your website isn’t showing up at the top of the search results when someone searches for “dentist” but your competitors are, that’s a huge problem. Best case, they scroll down and find you. Worst case, they schedule an appointment with someone else.

You may be thinking, I don’t need SEO, I can run Google AdWords ads and get customers that way. Well guess what? Organic traffic that comes from good SEO is free and appears right besides those advertisements. There is a lot of competition for keywords like “dentist” and a good, SEO-friendly website can compete directly with those ads.

Google searches are like the new Yellow Pages—when someone needs a service like a dentist, they simply open Google and type it in. These leads are of the highest-quality. When someone types in “dentist” to Google, there is a very, very high chance they are looking to schedule an appointment with a new dentist right now. What advertising can promise that kind of intent?

Here is a summary of what helps a website achieve a great SEO ranking on Google in 2018, in no particular order: • Page load speed • Mobile optimization • Great content • Verified business information • Backlinks (links to the website from other websites)

Fortunately, JJD’s Digital Marketing Services (http://jerryjonesdirect.com/digital) can handle all of that. But getting your website to rank at the top of search results is only half the battle!

Once your website has great SEO and the clicks keep coming in, bringing you people looking to schedule an appointment, you have to convert those visitors to actual patients.

Take a look at Jerry Jones’s dentist office website http://dentistsalem.net/. Notice something? There is an immediate call-to-action with an offer. “New Patient Special: Exam & X-Rays ONLY $39! Total Savings $183.” And then a big “Request Appointment” button under that, bringing the potential customer to a pop-up that asks their name, email and phone number. On the side of all this are five-star customer reviews/testimonials from real, satisfied customers. There is also a guarantee, “You must be 100% thrilled with your New Patient Visit, or it’s on us!” The website also says exactly where the dentist office is, at the top of the page: “Wellness Springs Dental in Salem, Oregon.”

Let’s review what you need your website to say and do as soon as someone visits it, without scrolling around or clicking through links: • Strong call-to-action • An incentive • Positive customer reviews • A guarantee • The location of the business These are all hallmarks of a great direct-response website.

To review: there are two parts to generating free leads with a website. Strong SEO and a strong call-to-action. The SEO part of the website can be technical but it is simple to understand—you want your website to rank as high as possible when certain keywords are searched for on Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. The most obvious keyword is “dentist” but other keywords and groups of them like “dentist near me,” “dentist in X city,” “family dentist,” etc.

The conversion part of the website is also equally important. You want those visits to convert into real patients.

Special offers, eliminating barriers like mentioning what insurance is offered or special financing, and deadlines for deals are all effective ways to get potential customers in the door. You need to lay out simply and in concise, powerful language, exactly why someone should set an appointment with you in the first 10 seconds on the website without them having to search around for the information they need to make a decision.

CURRENT EVENTS

Join us at the next PACK YOUR SCHEDULE New Patient Extravaganza! Stop struggling with new patients and enjoy practice again! Info @ BusyDentist.com to learn more.

So Who is Jerry Jones?

As the nation’s top expert on professional practice marketing with over 15 years experience, Jerry spends most of his time developing marketing and advertising strategies for his limited number of private clients and ClearPath Society Members.